retreats from the battle-ground; "the day of tumult, strife, defeat is o'er;" and in the stillness of night he gives utterance to his pain, and vindicates his integrity. The lines are very noble and simple; they are the nearest approach to genuine poetry that Macaulay, perhaps, ever made, for they come direct from the heart, and prove how immensely superior to any artifice, true feeling, in its simplest and most unadorned moods, always is. The queens of the world-gain, fashion, power, pleasure sweep scornfully past the sleeping child; until One comes, "the last, the mightiest, and the best." Oh, glorious lady! with the eyes of light,

And laurels clustering round thy lofty brow,
Who by the cradle's side didst watch that night,
Warbling a strange sweet music, who wast thou?

The others may leave him unheeded, but She will stay by him to the end," Still smiling, though the tender may reprove, still faithful, though the trusted may betray."

"In the dark hour of shame, I deigned to stand

Before the frowning peers at Bacon's side:

On a far shore I smoothed with tender hand,

Through months of pain, the sleepless bed of Hyde :

"I brought the wise and brave of ancient days

To cheer the cell where Raleigh pined alone :

I lighted Milton's darkness with the blaze

Of the bright ranks that guard the eternal throne.

"And even so, my child, it is my pleasure

That thou not then alone shouldst feel me nigh,
When, in domestic bliss and studious leisure,
Thy weeks uncounted come, uncounted fly;
"Not then alone, when myriads, closely pressed
Around thy car, the shout of triumph raise;
Nor when, in gilded drawing rooms, thy breast
Swells at the sweeter sound of woman's praise.

"No: when on restless night dawns cheerless morrow,
When weary soul and wasting body pine,
Thine am I still, in danger, sickness, sorrow,

In conflict, obloquy, want, exile, thine;

"Thine, where on mountain waves the snowbirds scream,
Where more than Thule's winter barbs the breeze,
Where scarce, through lowering clouds, one sickly gleam
Lights the drear May-day of Antarctic seas;

"Thine, when around thy litter's track all day
White sandhills shall reflect the blinding glare;
Thine, when, through forests breathing death, thy way
All night shall wind by many a tiger's lair;

"Thine most, when friends turn pale, when traitors fly,
When, hard beset, thy spirit, justly proud,

For truth, peace, freedom, mercy, dares defy
A sullen priesthood and a raving crowd."

That is the punishment which a great man inflicts on his assailants. The warning should make us careful. It is not safe to expose ourselves to the shafts of the immortals. At the same time it may reassure the meanest who desires to be remembered. Let him wait patiently, and watch assiduously, and the opportunity to wound a great man, to sting him into retaliation, to extort a retort which the world will not willingly let die, is almost sure, one day or other, to arrive. The publicans and the pharisees of Edinburgh bided their time. Their labour has not been in vain; they have earned an imperishable notoriety.

The wrong indeed was redressed, as far as redress was possible. Reparation was made. The people of Edinburgh were eager to remove an unseemly stain from the escutcheon of their city. They succeeded. The broken ties were renewed; the old member once more met his constituents

in kindness. Five years had passed since he had stood among them, and the years had left their marks upon all in that assembly,-upon him not the least. Disease had even then begun its work. The burly form was bent and attenuated; but the eye was still full of light, and the silver voice, though enfeebled, was liquid and syren-like as ever. It was the last great speech he ever made, and it recalled his greatest efforts. He was visibly affected when he rose, and when he alluded to the men of Edinburgh who had been taken away since he last stood among them, to the friendly faces and voices who would greet him no more, his voice shook painfully. "And Jeffrey, too," he added, with a suppressed sob, as he finished the enumeration. There he faltered and stopped short. The simple pause of feeling was more touching, and more expressive, than the most laboured panegyric could have been. Recovering his composure, he went on to sketch, in brilliant but gloomy colours, the terrible scenes which Europe had witnessed during the five years of war and revolution. And then he turned to ourselves. "The madness of 1848," he said, "did not subvert the British throne. The reaction which followed has not destroyed British freedom. And why is this? Why has our country, with all the ten plagues raging around her, been a land of Goshen? Everywhere else was the thunder, and the fire running along the ground—a very grievous storm-a storm such as there was none like it since man was upon the earth, yet everything tranquil here; and then again thick night, dark

ness that might be felt, and yet light in all our dwellings." This was the most striking passage in his speech-a passage rendered impressive to his hearers not more by the scriptural simplicity and elevation of its language, than by the grand earnestness of the speaker as he uttered it.

The orator warmed with his theme; with the most skilful and stinging irony he attacked his opponents; with the bravest and most honest zeal he vindicated his friends. For a time the exhaustion of disease was overcome his eye sparkled, his voice glowed; he was again the athlete in the proud confidence of his prime. But the excitement could not sustain him long: his voice failed him; and when he told his hearers in feeble accents,—“ In no case whatever shall I again be a member of any ministry; during what may remain of my public life, I shall be the servant of none but you," they saw that he spoke truly; that he had really done with cabinets and governments here; that the feeble thread might be snapped without warning at any moment; and some, at least, among them felt grateful that the atonement which they owed to the great orator and historian of his generation, had not been delayed till it was too late.

“An old man, sir; he will be talking; as they say, when the age is in, the wit is out: God help us-it is a world to see.' MUCH-ADO ABOUT NOTHING.

SOUTHDOWN, amid the green meadow-lands,

Quæ Liris quieta

Mordet aqua taciturnus amnis,

is probably the prettiest and most unproductive village in the country-side. I have known it now for half-a-century; yet during all these years I have detected no evidence of change. Unlike the laird of the debateable land, the people do not "stand upon progress." Standing indeed in any attitude is not a vocation for which they seem specially adapted. Before each whitewashed cottage great rustic chairs of a curious and antique pattern have rested for generations, and on these the natives may sometimes be seen when the day's work is done-if, indeed, they ever do work, of which the evidence is meagre and unsatisfying.